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Sunday is the new Monday

8th September 2008 by Helena 8 Comments  

""Proof, if it was needed, that my neural pathways are well and truly blocked comes from the fact that I am finding it impossible to get my head around Sunday being Monday. Today (Monday), for example, feels like Tuesday and I woke up thinking about all the things I am doing Tuesday. Because yesterday (Sunday) I was in the office.

When I first realised my week was about to start a day earlier I just thought ‘oh that’s fine, it’s a day earlier, I’ll easily cope with that’. But no. I am like a senile old person constantly having to ask people what day it is and wondering if tomorrow will be a work day or the weekend.

That’s the other complicating factor. Friday is the new Sunday. And Saturday is like, well, Saturday at home.

Good news from Leo. He declared his day at school yesterday “much more better” but still misses his teacher from home and of course Louis or Los as he writes his name. But he does have a friend, a Canadian boy called Oscar who also showed up in tears yesterday so they bonded, especially after they were told they have “the right” to speak English together by Leo’s teacher. His ballet class went very well, he showed me the moves last night and I think he’s a shoe-in for the Royal Ballet School.

The girls start their ballet tomorrow (Tuesday) and not today as I was convinced when I woke up this morning and prepared their kit. I can’t wait. I have also signed up for a class called vertical flex dancing – yes I had to ask what it was as well……Heaven knows what day of the week it is on, but I have until September 30th to work it out.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Abu Dhabi, Ballet, Children, blog --> Tagged With: monday, sunday

8 thoughts on Sunday is the new Monday

  • clare says:
    8th September 2008 at 8:21 pm

    Oh Helena!
    Did you ever think for one minute that everything would be such a struggle?
    The domestic situation seems such a nightmare but I know you keep optimistic.I know I asked you once before, way back, but what is your coping strategy here?
    Are your jobs exciting, at least?

  • helena says:
    8th September 2008 at 11:37 pm

    Hello Clare
    To be honest, as I sit here at 2 am having been woken up by the people upstairs yet again after a really challenging day with the children I am beginning to wonder what my strategy will be to get me through tomorrow….yoga possibly, visualising myself in our new flat that has still to be confirmed, and even if it is will bring more worries in that it is so horribly expensive. No, I didn’t think it would be such a struggle, but I have been told it takes about five months to settle in and then life is lovely. I have seen glimpses of that life. The work I have been able to do between childcare (they finish school at 1.30) and house-hunting and visa admin has been great, am looking forward to doing more.
    Hx

  • GHCH says:
    9th September 2008 at 12:58 pm

    I’m reading Noël Coward’s autobiography “Present Indicative”, a rather musty smelling volume I picked up in a charity shop. It is a first edition though, so I shouldn’t complain.

    Noël recalls his first audition at performing arts school. He was only 10, yet sang and “danced furiously”. When I read that, I smiled and thought of Leo, in his Chelsea shirt.

  • snusmormor says:
    9th September 2008 at 2:18 pm

    I think anything that requires five months to get “to settle in” would not be worth doing!

  • clare says:
    9th September 2008 at 7:34 pm

    Hi Helena
    If you can be that positive at 2am after little sleep then I massively applaud you and know you will make it. Good luck. You will certainly achieve the fab life;that’s clear!
    p.s. are you the driving force? It’s interesting.

  • Jacques says:
    9th September 2008 at 11:01 pm

    to snusmormor
    Vous me l’enlevez de la bouche

  • Catherine says:
    22nd December 2008 at 7:50 am

    Hi Helena
    I have just discovered your blog, and having just moved to Dubai myself (well almost 6 months ago now) I can totally relate to your sunday / monday struggle and had to laugh out loud at your post.
    I hope your domestic situation resolves itself and you find a great place to live!
    Good luck
    Cat

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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